My last visit on Saturday 18th was mostly spent working so I don’t have so much to tell you this time and very few photos. It was a dull but fine day and the woods were very quiet. Not much birdsong now. I took the chainsaw so I could continue sawing up the logs from last winter. I might just about get them all done before I start felling again and I’m thinking it might be better to process each tree completely as I fell it instead of just cutting them into long pieces and stacking them. That way they get split and stacked and start the drying process straight away and I don’t leave myself the legacy of a huge pile to sort out next summer. Remeber the log workbench I started to make for a big larch log? I called in Bambi because the legs I put on it were long and a bit widely spaced. It reminded me of the Disney film where the baby Bambi forst tried to stand up on some ice and her legs were all over the place. The next stage for the bench was to cut some pieces out so seeing as I had the chainsaw, I thought I would use it to cut the bench then chip away the wood with my axe. It was hard work, the larch uch tougher than I anticipated. I maybe cut the slots a little too deep, going approximatley half way butit’s still very strong.

The idea of the slots are for holding pieces of timber you might want to work on. The end one can be used simply as a place to rest a branch for cutting or you can drill a hole through it and pass some strong cord through. If you are making a spoon, you can hold it tight down by passing it through the cord, then sticking your foot in a loop below to pull done on it. Hard to explain but if I get around to finsihing it I’ll take a photo. The cut-out in the middle can be used as a vice. Say you wanted to make a bowl, you can put you small log into the cut-out, then use two wedges opposed to each other to tighten it into the gap and hold it in place.

I was just on my way to my log pile when three people turned up. They said they were lost and looking for a plot that was still for sale. It was the one adjacent to the northern end of mine. I took them round and gave them some information about the whole woodland, it’s history and the wildlife there. The lady who was interested in buying had pretty much all the same reasons as me. I felt comfortable with her and would be very happy having her as a neighbour. The other plot below that and adjacent to my lower half has also just sold. No idea who bought that but no doubt will find out before long. It’s been quite nice having no neighbours on my border as it meant total privacy on that whole side of my woods and my camping and sitting area is close to the border. Nothing much else to report so I’ll just leave you with another photo of my ever increasing log pile. I didn’t dare disturb the mouse nest I found last time under the logs but hopefully the babies are more or less grown and ready to leave now.